


Feral Creatures

by PompousPickle



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and shit, Crazy Maya, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 10:54:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1384963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU written for a tumblr prompt, where Maya is the one driven insane from Hyperion experiments and Krieg is the (mostly-sane) Vault Hunter who finds her. Chaos ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The skags keep pouring out of their containment cells, those poor sick bastards. We like watching them rip our captives apart. I mean, Hyperion kind of does deserve it, for all they’ve done to us. The skags don’t deserve it, of course. They are just as much the victims as we are. 

“INCINERATE THEIR BRAINS AND WATCH THEM DROPPP”

Well I mean, I guess we can’t have juiced-up monsters running around Pandora all willy-nilly. Besides, meting their internal organs is a good practice of my powers. It’s not like I can stop you anyway. Stop us. Stop what Hyperion has made out of us. The least I can do is destroy them with my powers, now that I’ve escaped.

“we goT OUT ON A MaN’S MERCY. CARVE HIS LIVER OUT OF HIM.”

Yeah. That man who set us free. He wasn’t with Hyperion, unless Hyperion hired some extra muscle. About two hundred and fifty pounds of extra muscle. Though I guess you’d have to be pretty ripped to carry as many guns as he had, as well as one of those axes stolen from the Psychos.

“SLICE slice SLice through those absssss”

Right. I suppose I’m a Pyscho too now. Great.  Can’t remember what I was before. I try to force you to remember sometimes, especially while we were locked up in that holding cell. But all you hear is white noise. All you see is red, just beyond our glowing blue tattoos.

“You’re still here,” a voice says. Not my voice. Not my voice and not the Hyperion screams and not the ripping splitting roar of skags. Look at him. For goodness’s sake _look_ at him. Stop torturing the poor animals with our powers and _look up_.

“DON’T CoME NEAR MEEEeee.”

But he still came closer. Just a step. The skags were dead, lifeless on the floor while their vital organs oozed out of them like soup. “Liver soup,” you mutter with a stifled laugh. I know the man heard you. But he chose not to say anything.

He’s playing with fire. He knows he is. Can’t he see the tattoos and can’t he hear me mumbling about butt-salsa and ripping off limbs? And yet he stands there, staring at me with calm, bloodshot eyes.

“I’m looking for a little girl. She is ten years old and her name is Grace. Blonde and about this high.” He holds up his hands. “She was taken by Hyperion about a day ago. Have you seen her, Siren?”

A girl. A girl a girl a girl. Have you seen her? Have we seen her? My hands are twitching and my tattoos are flashing and I can feel them moving under my skin. The Eridium pulses through me. You don’t want to hold still. You want to move. You want to kill. But just…wait. Just for a moment. Have you seen her? Have you seen Grace? Have you seen a little girl?

“THEY’LL PULSE HER BRAINssss inTO SMOOOTHIES HER SMALL BLUE EYES.” You manage to choke out. No. What are you doing? Please stop raising your hands. Please don’t use your powers. My powers. _Our_ powers. Not against him. Not now. Not now.

But he’s already caught in the Phaselock, before I can stop you. His face contorts in pain as the pressure from the lock builds around him. He’s too strong and we both know it. He’ll break the bonds in just a moment and attack us. And they you’ll kill him. You’ll melt each and one of his muscles down into a buttery fluid and he’ll never see Grace again.

I thought he could help us.

Turns out there is no hope for you and me.

The Phaselock begins to falter and the man begins to move, reaching for his axe slowly. And you know it’s time to act. You either run or you kill him now and spare yourself the agony of it later. All I can hear is blood rushing through our ears, and the study hum of the Eridium injectors that did this to us. That introduced me to you.

The axe swings forward at an incredible speed. Huh. For a guy that’s trapped in an orb of power and light, guys got a mighty fine swing. But the axe doesn’t hit. It flies right past us, into…oh.

A Hyperion Handler lays dead at our feet, with a buzz-axe sticking clean out of his skull. The Phaselock fades out completely. I can feel the power being absorbed back through our veins. You let out a harsh giggle at the feeling.

The man walks forward and pulls the axe out of the Handler and stares at me. I mean, you. He stares at us. Say something. Don’t just stand their twitching, clutching your tattoos like a life-support. Say thank you. Say that you hope he finds his daughter. Tell him that you’re glad he set you free, even if it was only going to come down to this.

“RoLL UP FLEShhh and dip it ARRRROUnddd”

The man stared for a moment. For a long time. About as long as you can stand still, anyway. You’re itching to fight again, to let out our powers again, to release the Eridium and gas pumping through your veins.

“You’re coming with me Siren. We’re going to find my daughter,” the man finally said, putting his axe away on his belt and turning towards the entrance to the holding cells. He tosses you something. Catch it. It’s okay.

It’s a gun. Maliwan. A pistol. It feels right in our hands. Familiar. Warm. You’ve held this gun before, or one very nearly like it. You remember how to shoot a gun, don’t you?

“One more thing,” the man adds, turning around with a small smile on his lips. “We only kill the deserving from now on. We’ll make them pay for what they did to you.”

And for the first time in a long time, I feel like my head is just a little clearer. Kill the deserving. Yeah. We can do that. We can find his daughter. We can kill the people who caught her. Who caught us. Perhaps I can’t thank him yet. But this?

Well, it’s close enough.  


	2. Chapter 2

It’s been days, I think. Or a day, at least. It’s been at least one night and one day and the sun is falling again and we are still at the heels of that Man. And we haven’t killed him yet. And he hasn’t tried to kill us, despite your insistent babbling about toenails and sauerkraut. So really, that’s something.

We combed through the entire Reserve to no avail though. I can see it in his eyes; he’s losing hope of ever finding her. Grace. His Grace. The girl he shouts about in his sleep, while you stare at him, fingers twitching, trying not to tear his face apart. He’s wondering if he’ll ever see him again. I can tell. I’ve lost the same kind of hope.

You should say something. Something to comfort him. Tell him that we’ll find her, that she got away in the explosion that we caused earlier. Tell him that we won’t rest until we find her, until justice is brought upon all that have wronged us.

“LIVER AND CHAINMAIlll ARMoR”

The Man only snorts and shakes his head, looking out over the hills. We remember this place. I remember this place. I think. The cool breeze. Before they took us away to the Reserve. The place. The dark place. “GET ME OuT.”

Relax, we’re already free from there.

“You have a name?” The Man asks us. I’m not sure that we do. Maybe once. I think we did once.

“A NAM E IS BUT A PRICKLY roSE ripped froM THe mouthes of RATSSSSS.”

“Poetic.” At least he laughs a little bit. “Though I don’t think I can call you that.”

Great. Now I’m just going to be called Siren for the rest of our days. Sparks jumped from our tattoos. I guess that’s the best name for us anyway. Short and sweet, but accurate.

Though I can’t help but wonder what we were called before all this mess started. It’s right there. Right on the tip of our tongues it was…it was…

“KILLINg TIME!” you nearly shriek as you let out a blast, lighting up several of the Stalkers around us. The Man looks on in amazement before taking out his gun, shocked that we could sense them approaching. Perks of being a Siren, I guess. Perks of what those Hyperion nutcases did to us.

It feels good to see them melt and burn, the Stalkers. It feels good to burn.

\---

The Man reads poetry once the sun goes down. He doesn’t think we’re listening. Actually, _are_ you even listening? You probably aren’t, digging our hands through the dirt and turning the worms there into mushy compost. You laugh as you do it, but it’s hardly joyful. Not like _real_ murder, anyway.

But it feels good to get some of this charge, this Eridium, free from our veins.

He’s talking about the hills, and the stars, I think. His words jumble together as he writes down his words. He’s not bad, for a poet who murders people in his spare time. I wish I could tell him that. I wish we could comment and correct his grammar a bit or…things I used to do. Things I used to _know._

\---

I’m not sure when we fell asleep, listening to his voice.

_There were men. Hundreds of men and women and children in robes. I was a God. We were Gods. No. I. Me. There was only one Goddess. There was only one only me only only one only_

_It was a pleasure to burn._

_It was good to burn. To melt to watch them scream._

_No. no. not those people. No they were innocents they were._

_But then I left. I left that place. I left Godhood and there were men in robes who I left behind and…_

_Maya._

_Maya is my name and don’t call me-_

“Maya! MAyA. MAAYA CALL ME. FOR GOD’S LivvveeeRRR CAAAALL ME maya. DON’t”

_Don’t call me Child._

“DOOOn’t caall. Me. CHILD.”

_And then there was this place._

_And then there was Pandora._

“Don’t. CALL. Me. _Child.”_

_\---_

We’re wide awake before the moon has really budged from the sky. The Man is up too, preparing some food for the rest of the day. He hasn’t slept much either, we can tell from his eyes. His dark, bloodshot eyes and circles around them. He offers something that looks like roasted meat.

Something tells me that you wish it were raw. But you bite into it anyway, tearing it down and swallowing in one large gulp, cherishing the way it fills your through. You want to rip up more. “MUST. MORE MEAT. DELICIOUS FRESH MEAT PUREES ON THE MEAT CHOPPER WHHHHHHHRRRRR MUST MAKE MORE WE MUST GE-.”

“Easy there, Maya. We’ll get more.”

What did you call me?

As if he knows, the Man blinks a few times, and we stare back at him, hunger briefly forgotten. Dead in our tracks, we can’t help but stare. “That’s your name, right? You were screaming it, a few hours ago. You wanted to be called Maya. Maybe I misunderstood.”

Maya. Right.

Something in that dream, I guess. Something about that tainted, purple-tinted memory. Maya. “Maaaya,” you repeat back. It’s hardly coherent, but it’s a start. Better than what’s been coming out of our mouth recently, lately.

“Simon Krieg,” he said quietly. “You can call me Krieg. I mean, if you can call me anything at all.” He snorts out a laugh again. I hate when he does that. But it sounds so innocent, even if it really does belittle me.  I hate this man. Just a little. Just enough to make me want to stay around him, but not enough to kill him.

No. He said we kill the deserving now. He has yet to deserve the wrath of a Siren.

Still, Krieg. The word sounds familiar. “THe OLLD DUTCHY WORD. KRIEEEG. BLITZKRIEEEG. BRING ON THE THUNDerrrr of WAR.”

Right. Sure. Whatever.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Krieg laughs, just a bit. Not one of those “snorting, condescending laughs”. But an actual, genuine laugh. A genuine smile. You try to grin back. It doesn’t work. “Krieg means ‘war’,” he clarifies. “That’s what we are. War. You and I. We fight Hyperion and we fight the murderers and Bandits who took away your sanity. And my daughter. We’re a Two Person War against Pandora. Fighting for what they took from us. Do you understand?”

Sure. I understand. And truthfully? It sounds wonderful. I only wish we could tell him that. But instead what comes out is. “MOR E MEAT IN Our MEAAAT PARADE. I WAnnnt TO BE THE DRUM MAAAJOr.”

 And there it is again, that snorting laugh. God I wish he could just hear me. Not you. Me. And maybe he’d stop rolling his eyes and laughing at me like that. I just want him to actually look at _me_ this time.

“Yeah,” Krieg then adds softly, loading up his guns for the day. The sun is finally beginning to rise over the highlands for the morning. “Let’s go lead a Meat Parade, Maya.”

Well, I guess I can probably get used to this.


	3. Chapter 3

There are people up ahead. There are always people up ahead. But these ones seem different. Stronger, even. And relatively sane. You can tell just by looking at them, watching the way they rip through the spiderants and other bandits.

“Vault Hunters. No one else would be that strong or that stupid,” Krieg informs me, without even asking. We couldn’t ask even if we wanted to. The words wouldn’t come out right anyway. But being with Krieg for these past weeks has at least taught you to hold your tongue more.

“RIPPP CLEAN THROUGH THEIR HUNTING SPLEENSSsss.”

Or not.

“Right. Not these guys. Not yet at least. We want to stay hidden, let them wipe out these Buzzards, and then move on. If they see us, they will likely kill us. Or, they will kill me. They will _try_ to kill you.”

That leaves us feeling sick. Not even Vault Hunters can take us down, put us to sleep like a sick dog. We’re unstoppable. And that makes you feel a lot better than it does me.

There are four of them, surrounded by bandits and spiderants, all at once. The tall one, the one with the weird helmet, is down. There is a young girl among them, probably still school-age. That is, if they even have school here on this Hell Planet. She’s covered in cuts and bruises, but still smiling through the pain.

Stay hidden.

Don’t move.

Not yet not yet.

They’re dying. They’re on the battlefield and they’re dying. Krieg is keeps us safe and grounded but that doesn’t mean we have to do everything he says. He doesn’t want to watch them die either. Innocents are never on the menu.

“Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill saVE THE VAULTING MEEEAT MEN.”

We run from behind our cover, tattoos glowing and gun hot in our hands. The Buzzards never stood a chance of course. Perhaps they were hard to catch in a Phaselock before. But with this Eridium in our veins, with your voice telling me to kill, over and over, they never stood a chance. They fall to the ground, uselessly before exploding, the sheer force of the Phaselock too much for them.

You don’t even look back, but we both know Krieg is hot on our heels, guns blazing and taking out whatever bandits and vehicles he possibly can. He rushes straight towards the Vault Hunters, helping them back on their feet while you kill.

Kill kill kill.

Phaselocking the vehicles is new, picking them up and watching them drop, exploding their engines from the inside out. I wonder if I could always do that. Or if we only have Hyperion to thank for this new little addition.

Krieg is talking. You can hear his voice in the background. But the hum blocks it out, the shrieks of spiderants and the begging of bandits makes his voice a dim echo in the distance. An incessant babbling as he speaks to the Soldier, the one who is likely the leader of this little ragtag band. He probably thinks Krieg is some kind of savior of the badlands, a saint to all men.

Hell, I’m beginning to think that myself.

“That. Is the _coolest_ thing I have EVER seen!” A voice shouts from behind us. Turn around. Put the poor Spiderant Queen down and turn around.

Or…make it explode. That works too.

Spiderant guts get all over the young girl as she stares at you with big eyes. She is grinning ear to ear, her face bloody and covered in dust and sand. But she is looking at us like we are some kind of gift to the universe. Say hello. Tell her that you won’t hurt her. That your name is Maya and that you won’t hurt her.

“I…” you start to say. That’s it, nice and slow. We can do this.

But then she grabs our arm, studying the tattoos and babbling away. “How does this work, I wonder? Why are they glowing like that? Hey, Zer0, you like weird stuff, right? Come take a look at this! I _have_ to figure out how to do that globe thing!”

Before I know it, our arms are around her. Get off of me, Little One. Get off of _us_. “Constrain me LIKE CCCHAAinS and I WILL MURDerrr YOUUUR AAARMS OFFF littttle…”

She lets go of the arm. “Okay, okay, geez. No need to shout. I was just curious,” she mumbles. But she’s unfazed. She’s unaffected by us entirely, and unafraid.

“A Siren approaches?/Could this be a new challenge?/Bring it on, bee-yotch.”

Did the Helmet guy just speak in Haiku?

“BuT NOthiNG RHYMesss wiTH ORANGe.” You add uselessly. Maybe Krieg’s late-night poetry sessions are finally getting to us after all. You’re itching to kill again. There are bandits in the distance; you can just barely see them. But Krieg is still busy talking. He’d be angry if you’d run off. He’d be…

Since when did I let anyone _own_ me like this?

“Hey,” the Soldier speaks as he and Krieg approach. “Gaige, Zer0, Sal. Listen up. This is Krieg, another Vault Hunter. And that’s Maya, a…”

“Murder-crazed Siren?” the Short One, with the blue beard, finishes helpfully. “We noticed.”

“Right,” Krieg steps in, adjusting his gun straps and moving towards us slowly. “Maya, these guys work for the Crimson Raiders. They have someone who does a lot of work with Eridium and slag experimentations. Working with them might get us closer to finding my daughter and…”

Fixing you. That’s what he is going to say. He wants to fix us. Because we’re broken. A monster.

“CRImsON IS THE COLor of BLOOOOD.” You conclude loudly, causing the girl in pigtails to jump just a little bit.

“Yeah, she’s in,” Krieg then states, looking at the Soldier and nodding. “Maya, this is Axton.”

“The shorty is Salvador. Great guy, really lovable,” The Soldier, Axton, chimes in. “Just don’t hang around him when he’s hungry.”

“IT WAS ONE TIME.”

Axton ignores him and continues. “Pigtails is Gaige. She’s the team mascot. Once killed a classmate but in all fairness, the bitch was kind of asking for it.”

“Damn straight, she was,” Gaige agrees as she continues to look us over, this time from a distance. Probably a good idea.

“And the last one is _our_ personal Murder Pet,” Axton shrugs towards the Tall Haiku Thing. “Zer0. Not sure what he is but he hasn’t killed us in our sleep yet so we keep him around.”

“I seek a challenge / I promise not to hurt you / Unless you like that,” Zer0 adds with a weird winking smiley face appearing on his helmet in red. You glance towards Krieg. I know what you’re thinking. You aren’t sure if we should travel with these people. You don’t want to hurt them. But I don’t trust them.

But Krieg has made up his mind.

We should run. Kill them and run. Murder and run. We’re stronger than them. Stronger than Him. Being chained down has never ended well for us. We’re on Pandora now. A place for monsters. A place for _us_. We can be free.

And yet…

“Hey! Enough standing around already,” the Short One, Salvador, says to you, grinning like it’s Mercenary Day or something. “You should use your powers on some midgets and we can smack ‘em like piñatas, eh? Whatdya say?”

You look to Krieg. And we both know that his opinion shouldn’t matter. That you should run and kill and be around people who don’t mind your powers, people who aren’t afraid of us. People who don’t rein you in. Still, without him, we would have never met Them.

And then he smiles and nods before the others run off to a Bandit Camp. The urge to kill is rushing through your veins. But his smile. Small and insistent and it causes a thrumming. Something deep down inside of you, inside of _me_ that tells me that we’ll be following him for a while.

We’re in trouble.


End file.
